Problems often arise with many older fly patterns, because the materials are sometimes very difficult to obtain, or people don´t really know what they need to get! The original feathers of even rare and protected birds are given in some cases, many of these birds are now endangered and protected, and no attempt should be made to obtain such feathers, even possession of such material in some places is illegal. You may be lucky and find a bird dead on the road somewhere which you can use, otherwise you should use the substitutes.
Hen hackles are not usually very good substitutes for game bird and similar feathers, although they may be used in a pinch. They are often very wispy and thin, much thinner in the barbs than other feathers, less mobile, and several turns of hackle are often advised to obtain the required effect, whereas one will usually do with the original feathers. I don´t personally agree with using more turns of hackle, but many authors have recommended this over the years.
When using hen hackles try to find coarse webby feathers, (if you buy them, these are usually the cheapest by the way!), and if you can find them, with broken colouring, like mottling or barring, these are far more useful and effective than single colour feathers. Avoid dyed colours as much as you can. This does make a difference. If you do want to use dyed feathers, then you might like to have a look at this first. If you just want half a dozen feathers of a particular colour, then use permanent markers to colour them, this is a great deal easier and cheaper than dyeing in the conventional manner.
Genetic hen feathers are not very good for most of these flies, the feather quality is far too good! Much of this hackle is almost web free and very fine and springy, which reduces the intrinsic mobility considerably, and this in turn reduces the flies effectiveness for many purposes. Coarser feathers imitate insect legs better usually. There are some new materials on the market now, notably Brahma hen feathers, ( from Whiting farms) which may be well suited to a number of spider type flies. Hans Weilenmann has a few very nice looking patterns for these on his site. I have used hen back feathers for some things, but up to now I did not really need to use many substitutes, as I have a good stock of materials, and I don´t dress many flies which use extremely rare or protected birds and animals.
Many old time dressers, (including Skues in fairly modern times, who did a great deal of research into north country patterns,) were of the opinion that feathers with a good amount of natural grease or oil in them were better for fly-dressing than any other type.
This may seem paradoxical for wet flies, but it is nevertheless a fact that many of the feathers used and recommended for these patterns do contain a lot of natural grease or oil, and are more effective for many flies. Washing the feathers gently and carefully in warm soapy water made with pure soap, to get them reasonably clean, does not detract from this property, however hot dyeing them certainly will, as most of the natural oil is boiled out, some modern detergents should also be avoided for this reason. This is probably the main reason for some dyed feathers being less effective for dressing purposes.
Many bird feathers, notably Pigeon and Dove feathers among others, would seem at first glance to be ideal for fly dressing, coming as they do in a wide range of attractive colours and sizes, even metallic glints are common, excellent for imitating some insects. Strangely enough most old time dressers gave these feathers a wide berth, maintaining that they were "dry" lifeless and dull.
There are hardly any patterns using these feathers, even though they were widely available and easy to obtain at the time, quite the reverse of some of the feathers actually used. It is highly unlikely that this was done without good reason, when one considers the trouble many went to in choosing feathers for dressing their flies. This is probably another reason why hen hackles are not as good either. The same is true of most of the furs used, water rat, shrew and several other animals were used because the fur is naturally waterproof when untreated. This bears thinking about when substituting materials. While we may not always know exactly why some materials are better than others, we may rest assured that these flies are sometimes the result of years of experimentation and research, and it would be foolish to take this lightly
Pure waxed silk was almost always used for many of these flies, the type of wax used varied quite considerably, as it was often made up mainly of resin. ( Purified pine resin was often used). For the majority of flies nowadays, ordinary beeswax suffices to wax the silk if this is required. It is possible to use modern tying thread, and just form the bodies of waxed or unwaxed floss silk or thread, this results in a somewhat thicker body, and should not be overdone, but it does work.
Small thin bodies are more effective on spiders usually. Some modern threads may also be used waxed to obtain the effects required as well. One way of obtaining very good translucence is to wind a flat body of gold or silver tinsel, and overwind this with one layer of fine waxed silk. This looks very good, the tinsel shines through when wet, imitating natural translucence very well indeed.
Try to avoid handling the flies too much with your fingers after dressing them, as this transfers natural oils from your fingers to the feathers, and makes the flies very difficult to sink. Your hands and fingers should be scrupulously clean when dressing flies anyway, especially silk bodied ones, as every speck of dirt or grease shows up plainly on the body, and makes the flies look rather tatty, it is doubtful whether the fish really mind about the tattiness, indeed, the very tatty ones tend to catch more fish! But the oil from your fingers can be a problem.
I have seen one or two flies dressed with bodies of "larva lace", which is basically fine soft plastic tubing, and similar synthetics, and the translucence and colour thus obtained is excellent, in many cases better than the original pattern with silk, to human eyes at any rate. I mostly still use silk though! I have tied up a range of patterns with larva lace, but somehow never get around to trying them out properly! The originals are hard to beat as fish catchers! Also, some experiments I did with this material left me rather unconvinced as to its effectiveness.
Judging by the number of e-mails and other correspondence I have been receiving lately on the subject, and also at the time this article was originally written, Yorkshire flies or "Soft Hackles" as they are also known, are becoming very popular once again, although for a while they seemed to have fallen into disuse, or been neglected in favour of more exotic or complicated patterns.
These were the first flies I used as a boy, and they were very successful indeed, in fact most of the people I met or knew at that time in Yorkshire fished these flies almost exclusively. Dry fly fishermen were very rare in the North in those days, although there were some.
Many of the old standby patterns such as Partridge and Orange, Snipe and Purple etc, will still be found in almost every Yorkshire flyfisher's box, and even some of the less well known patterns are still popular in many parts of England. Several first class books about north country wet flies were published, and even today still enjoy wide acclaim.
There were basically three methods of fishing these flies, the old traditional method of down and across using a fairly long soft actioned rod and a team of two or three flies, , perhaps working the flies, and also allowing them to swing across the current on a tight line, the “new” method ( although it was already an old method !) popularised largely by Stewart in his book "The practical angler", whereby the flies were mainly fished upstream dead drift, much like dry fly fishing, or more modern nymphing techniques whereby the angler moved upstream casting ahead using a long ( Stewart used a comaparatively “short” ten foot rod), stiffish rod and a short line, and the downstream method, whereby the flies are cast across and slightly up from the anglers standpoint, and fished dead drift to below him, then the angler moves down a yard or two and casts again. In some places nine or ten or even more flies were used on the leader ( still mostly referred to as a “cast” in the UK ).
The only really successful method of those described above, is the upstream dead drift method, where the angler moves carefully upstream, casting often at every likely spot, or of course at rises or marked fish. The other methods will take fish, especially in coloured water, or fast broken riffles, but not as many and usually of smaller size, whereby many fish are also lost due to just being "pricked" or "turned over."
Time and practice is required to master the really successful upstream working method, and a longish rod (rods of between ten and fourteen feet were used for this method) is a necessity, as with shorter rods it is just about impossible to gain the perfect control required. I use a number of modern match rods for this purpose, as fly rods of this length with the required action and delicacy are hard to acquire nowadays.Nine feet is about the shortest length with which this method is really practicable, and is difficult even then. Stealth and delicacy of presentation are prerequisites of this method. I have just acquired a thirteen foot telescopic rod, which I am in the process of testing. It is a little cumbersome on small streams, but does give marvelous line control.
Attempting this method with the relatively short rods now popular is more or less a waste of time, as line recovery, casting etc are just too difficult and tiring. In fast flowing streams the flies will be back at your feet before you even have time to see where they landed. The trick is to use a line not much longer than the rod and to raise the rod to maintain loose contact with the flies, casting long lines makes this just about impossible, as one is then obliged to retrieve line per hand.
The casting line should be kept short, preferably not much longer than the rod, not including the leader ( cast), and one must cast very often indeed, the drift sometimes being very short before drag sets in. Some old experts “worked” the flies, by vibrating the rod, and using other techniques. This technique is however very difficult to master, and requires considerable practice. Some people are apparently much better at this than others, as they “vibrate”better. Sounds a bit silly, but it is true.
Dragging flies may often tempt usually small fish to grab at them, but most decent trout will ignore them, as they are perfectly aware that a natural insect does not behave in this manner. This should be borne in mind when fishing upstream wet flies, or indeed any other flies! Their is a difference between “working” and “Dragging” !
Although these flies are often referred to as "Yorkshire wet flies" or "North country flies" in actual fact many of them may be traced to areas of Derbyshire, Lancashire, the Lake District and many other places in England Scotland and Wales. Their main characteristics are their small size and almost austere sparseness and delicacy of dressing. The style of fly also varies considerably from area to area, although ostensibly the same pattern.
The popular name "North country flies" is probably due to the title of the second edition of the book by T.E-Pritt, (the first edition was called "Yorkshire Flies,") this book was first published in 1885, the second edition in 1886, and is now very rare and valuable indeed as a collectors item. This book was more or less the bible of north country patterns, became an instant classic, and was also remarkable for the eleven high quality hand coloured plates in the book. I have a facsimile reprint of the second edition, but this was also limited to five hundred copies.
Nowadays in many places, one fly only on the leader is the rule, but the basic methods are still effective if one can manage them. Some methods wont work well or even at all with only one fly! These flies are quite good imitations of many insects, are relatively simple and cheap to tie, and one may catch prodigious numbers of fish with them. Larger soft hackles are now fairly common, but years ago the small delicate flies in sizes 16 to 12 were by far the most popular and effective lures. In point of fact one was generally advised to fish flies a size smaller than the natural if possible, as this was invariably more successful. Only changing to larger flies in “big “ water ( heavier flows).
The larger soft hackled flies will catch fish, but it is uncertain what some of them are supposed to represent. Probably the semblance of life and mobility engendered by the soft hackles tempts fish to grab them anyway, even though they are far larger than their natural counterparts. There is no such thing as a size 8 dark spanish needle, or a size 10 iron blue dun. Patterns tied in these sizes do catch fish, but rarely quite as well as the smaller more accurately imitative patterns.
I know and have also heard of quite a few people who fish very large soft hackles with considerable success, but mostly as general or attractor patterns, and making little or no attempt to match the hatch. This was not the case years ago in the Yorkshire Dales and other places where many of these patterns originated. Great pains were taken to match the natural flies in size and colour, and many different feathers were tried until the best imitation of the natural insect was discovered. Many of the feathers used at that time are no longer available, and some of the substitutes leave much to be desired, it is nevertheless still possible to tie a range of soft hackle patterns to suit almost any eventuality on the water.
Many North country and other spider flies were dressed with a "kick", for upstream fishing. When "worked", these flies have a particularly lively action. The hackles literally "pulse" when manipulated properly. Which is presumably the same reason the Italians dress them in this fashion. After use, such flies must be carefully dried and fluffed up, as otherwise the hackles may take a bend in the wrong direction, and this makes them much less effective.
Practically all the spider type flies were also dressed with a kick for upstream work. There is some info on this in various literature. This however usually works best with slightly stiffer hackles, which give more movement when worked. Although I have also seen partridge hackles dressed in this fashion. Many modern dressers incorporate a very small "thorax" of fur, to help force the hackles forward, and keep them there. One may of course simply use thread, as in the majority of Italian flies.
The origins may be different from the Italian flies, which are identical in form and function, although who knows? Maybe some Roman soldier, perhaps even originally from the Po valley area, brought some flies with him when he invaded Britain? This may even be the origin of a whole host of flies and techniques. The Romans were certainly active in those parts of Britain where such flies and techniques were used, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that they may even have introduced them. They had very great influence on a whole host of things. Wherever they originated, the design and function are identical.
False casting with modern rods will dry these flies very effectively indeed. However, using the long rods, no false casting is done at all, there is no call for it, and the flies do not get a chance to dry out. The reason for drying the flies after use, and before storing them again, is that otherwise the hackles may mat together, and dry into a different curve. As long as the flies are in use, this does not occur.
There are also various tricks for "bending and setting" hackles. One common method in Yorkshire, which also gives some very typical appearances to the flies thus treated, is to pull the hackles over the edge of the thumbnail after the legs and wings have been "set". "Setting" here, refers to the fact that the hackle is split more or less equally above and below the hook shank, to represent wings and legs separately, and also the angle at which the hackle is set on the hook. In some flies a few extra fibres were added as wings, and the hackle itself, was below the shank.
This is a North-country-style spider with the hackle set above and below the hook, and "bent" to shape by curving the fibres over the thumbnail. This style is a fairly good upstream fly, but will lose its shape immediately when used downstream or worked. It is purely for dead drift work. The hackles are “set” above and below the hook to represent the wings of a spent or otherwise drowned fly. This technique was very popular with some dressers in Yorkshire. Many dressers being of the opinion that it was a much better imitation of the naturals when dressed in this way. Of course, there was a lot of controversy on this too!
Generations of fly-dressers have struggled with the interpretation of “hackle turns”! Authors and others, often remonstrated that flies should be kept sparse. However, if you want very sparse flies, then simply count the number of barbs on the feather you wish to apply! If you want a fly with eight barbs, then strip off all the other fibres before you wind it! Of course there are other techniques for applying hackle, apart from simply winding feathers.
The vast majority of wet flies and spiders were dressed in the sizes 14 or 16, with quite a few in size 18 if the feathers were obtainable in this size. If in doubt, go one size smaller. Many of the older experts were of the opinion that the small flies were much more effective, but also complained constantly that feathers in these sizes were often difficult or impossible to obtain.
Variations in the dressing of these types of flies are legion. Many authors and dressers over the years have evolved various methods of hackling, dubbing etc, for various purposes. Some of these methods, or styles, as opposed to the specific patterns, have become more or less standardised in some places, often for the wrong reasons, and this is rather unfortunate. Some of these flies must be dressed in certain ways with certain materials if they are to be effective as they were originally designed to be, but this does not mean that all such flies should be dressed in this manner, quite the contrary.
Dogmatic assertions that a soft hackled fly should have a hackle one and a half times the body length for instance is fairly nonsensical. The insects one is attempting to imitate are all different, and there is no “Standard” size for wings and legs on the creatures.
One of the reasons for some North country flies having long hackles is the simple fact that these hackles are not available in smaller sizes! There are other reasons as well of course. Many of these flies have been in use for hundreds of years because they work extremely well, and although appearing very simple, are in fact pinnacles of achievement and development,which may hardly be bettered as imitations, when tied with the correct materials, and in the correct way.
"Umbrella" hackled flies, where the hackle is tied in to spread it evenly and concentrically around the hook, which are fairly popular nowadays, are often quoted as being the perfect way of hackling soft hackles. This is simply not so. This method is excellent for many wet flies, and is known to work well, but for many upstream wet flies it is far better to give the hackle ( and the wings) the correct "set" meaning to fix the hackles in such a way that the fibres are more or less evenly distributed above and below the hook in anything from almost flat to the body up to an almost vertical plane, thus more efficiently suggesting wings and legs, and making the fly more stable and a better imitation for dead drift operation, either up or downstream.
There are no natural flies whose legs and wings radiate from the body concentrically over 360°, unless you take hairy caterpillars into account!, and flies tied in such a way can not possibly be good imitations of naturals usually, unless other criteria are taken into account, such as mobility, special technique of use, semblance of life, trigger behaviour, etc. Dry flies are tied like this to help them float, not to make them better imitations. There is no sensible reason to do this on wet flies usually, unless specific actions or movements are required, as in woolly buggers and similar flies.
Quite a few authors and dressers advocate the use of herl, fur, or wool thoraces, on many upstream flies, although actually only a few of the original patterns had these additions, maintaining that they then fish better, as the hackle is held upright and away from the hook shank, and gives a greater semblance of life to the imitation, or a better profile, or because it just "looks better." Some others maintain that a small drop of varnish (head cement) on the finishing knot should be allowed to seep into the hackle roots, thus stiffening the hackle somewhat, and helping to maintain it in the desired position. Some avoid the whip finish because they say it makes the head too big, especially on flies with herl, or wool,or fur heads, some use a single half hitch with varnish, some use no varnish, and so on.
None of these ideas are carved in stone! The whole point is, before dressing a fly, you should know what you want to imitate with it and under what conditions, and these considerations should be reflected in the dressing. Upstream wet fly fishing with the correct imitations and techniques is by no means "chuck and chance it" as is often implied, quite the contrary. When practised correctly it is a deadly and precise method of catching large numbers of fish in a very satisfying and pleasurable way.
Vehement assertions that hackles "must" be tied in by the tip, or one side of the hackle "must" be stripped, are also rather ridiculous. These flies are deceptively simple, deceptively because the possible variations in dressing styles and designs, and combinations of them are more or less infinite, and all were originally invented for specific purposes.
Some hackles have to be tied in by the tip because it is more or less impossible to tie them in by the stalk, and still achieve the required effect, this is dictated by the material in this case, other hackles may be better tied in by the stalk or other variations used, depending on the material used and the effect or property which one is seeking to obtain. Many feathers have well defined tapers, meaning the fibres at the tip are usually shorter than the fibres at the butt, it is usually more natural looking to tie such feathers in by the tip and wind in such a way that the shorter fibres are at the rear of the hackle towards the hook bend, but you do not have to do this, if you want to try it the other way go ahead!
Natural insects which fall into the water, or live in it all the time, all behave and appear differently, depending on the insects themselves, their size, colouration, degree of robustness, delicacy, swimming ability or the lack of it, etc. These flies were designed and tied to imitate a multitude of such creatures in all manner of forms and circumstances.
Really good wet flies have to be good imitations, because the fish see them directly and closely. There is no one "perfect" soft hackle form or set of dimensions for all situations, and it is arrant nonsense to even suggest such a thing. Many patterns may be used "universally" as they imitate so many creatures, that they will be taken for something or other at practically any time on any water. In fact many people only use two or three flies in total. Stewart of "The Practical Angler" fame, only used three general spider type patterns usually and had three winged patterns in reserve, should his spiders fail him, or be required for certain types of water, which apparently hardly ever occurred, according to his writings.
Some styles of dressing are shown below, with comments on the situations and conditions for which they were originally designed. A point I have made before on various occasions, but which is still worthy of repetition here, is the fact that years ago "style" meant the variations in fly patterns making them suitable for different conditions, and the way in which they were dressed in order to achieve this.
"Style" has now come to mean the little idiosyncrasies which many dressers build into their flies to make them stand out from others. This is not the same thing at all. The first reason is an eminently sensible and practical consideration for making the flies more accurate imitations, and thus more attractive to the fish, which is the object of the whole exercise, and the second is to make the flies more attractive to people and boost ones own ego with a "personal stamp" on ones work, which, while it may be profitable or fun or interesting, has nothing whatever to do with the behaviour or appearance of insects, or the predilections of trout.
People often ask me why I do not use the "traditional" down-eyed hooks for my north-country-style wet flies. In fact I have been told on occasion by one or two experts that my flies "don't look right " or are "tied on the wrong hooks," or "you will never win a prize with flies like that" and similar encouraging remarks. Well the reasons are as follows. For hundreds of years these flies were tied on hooks without any eyes at all, directly to horsehair or gut, eyed hooks being a relatively recent invention, so there is no “tradition” of up or down eyed hooks as such. I prefer straight eyed hooks for several positive and specific reasons as well, the head of the fly may be finished very small and very close to the eye, much closer than with up or down eyed hooks, and this allows very fine small finishing knots important on flies with herl or fur heads. Silk thread is also thicker than many synthetic threads used today, and one has larger heads anyway on silk thread flies as a result of this.
The appearance of bulk engendered by up or down eyed hooks is avoided, the tendency of the offset hook eye to pull the fly out of line on the cast (leader) is obviated, and the flies thus fish more naturally. This reduces hinging and breaks at the knot as well. The appearance of the finished fly more closely resembles the real thing in my opinion, when tied on these hooks, but this is purely my personal opinion. When being "worked," or in heavy water, the offset eye can cause the fly to generate too much turbulence, and can actually act as a sort of miniature diving plane, causing the fly to hang and behave in a very unnatural manner. With straight eyed hooks this simply does not occur.
Drennan Carbon Specimen hooks with straight eyes, which I mentioned in a previous article are the best hooks I have found for this purpose to date, and I have tried lots, even making some myself. I also use them for dry flies as they are fine wire and extremely good quality. They are also cheaper than most purpose made trout hooks, as they are made for coarse fishing! It is an unfortunate fact nowadays that if something is made specifically for "fly" fishing it invariably costs more than a similar product just as good or better, but originally made for some other purpose.
So, on to styles. The Greenwells Glory has been chosen as the pattern, the same materials have been used in all the flies shown in the style section below, apart from the addition of a small fur thorax on some to obtain special effects, the only other differences are in style.
Traditionally, and in many modern books, the materials for patterns are often given in the order in which they are tied in, this means that the materials list should be adjusted to reflect the style of fly being dressed! If the Wings are tied in first then they should be first in the list, if the wings are tied in last, then they should be last on the list and so on. A pattern recipe written properly should tell you something about the style and dressing operations, and not just be a list of materials. I have simply given a list of materials for all the flies here listed, as the dressing and style is discussed specifically in the text anyway. A pattern from a hand dresser may have a different material dressing order than a pattern from somebody who uses a vice. Also, the method of finishing affects the dressing order. It is as well to remember this when looking at older fly-dressings.
Greenwells Glory
The materials are:
HOOK. - This fly may be used to represent nearly all the olives, and a host of other creatures as well, and may be tied in practically any suitable size. For upstream olive imitations I would suggest 16, 14 and 12. I prefer relatively short shanked straight eyed hooks without exception for these flies, for the reasons already outlined above. Small neat sparse flies are more effective than large or bushy examples.
WINGS. - Hen Blackbird or dyed Starling. Light or dark undyed Starling may also be used if desired. This fly is also often winged with grey Duck primary or secondary quill slips, especially commercial ties, but these are rather coarse for this purpose in my opinion.
BODY. - Well waxed primrose yellow silk, which should turn a translucent green olive colour when waxed, there are a number of suitable waxes available, pure Beeswax works, although it is a little difficult to use on silk, Gehrkes Fly dressing wax is also very good, and dubbing is easier with this than with pure Beeswax, if one desires to use wax. "Cobblers" wax is often mentioned in old dressings, but as this comes in all shades and colours from white to black it is sometimes difficult to know what is meant by this. For most of my waxed silk flies, I wax the silk with beeswax, and use a glue stick for “touch” dubbing
It is fairly obvious that very dark or highly coloured wax would change the body colour too much, and there would be little point to this. Some flies are made like this though, using very dark cobblers wax to darken the thread. The ideal wax should usually darken the body somewhat, change the silk colour to the required shade, ( in this case olive), and give the translucence mentioned, or at least the appearance of it.
The body of this fly is ribbed with four turns of fine gold wire or tinsel. (wire is better, lasts longer!) I do not suppose that trout count the turns of ribbing, and it is presumably immaterial whether one uses four or five turns, however the turns should be even and correctly spaced to represent the segmentation on the body of the naturals, and to give a conservative amount of "flash" to the body, which also aids in faking the insects natural translucence.
LEGS. - Dark Furnace hen hackle. Greenwell for lighter flies. In many patterns of this fly Cochybonddu Hen hackle is specified, this is more or less impossible to obtain, in fact many authors and dressers maintain that this colour does not exist as hen hackle. This is not true, I have some natural Cochybonddu Hen hackle, but it is extremely rare. For some patterns "Henny cock" is specified.This is cock hackle with a lot of web and very soft in texture, and is more or less useless for normal dry flies, but may be used on lots of wet flies. The original Greenwells Glory, ( If it was an original! There were similar flies extant at the time) almost certainly used furnace hackle.
THORAX. ( where appropriate ) - Mixed dark Hares Ear fur. Or somewhat lighter when a light coloured wing is used. This may be varied of course to suit the insects on your water. It is essential to blend the fur properly to gain the maximum effectiveness, using single colour substitutes, whether natural or artificial makes a poor fly.
At least three shades should be blended together to obtain the end shade desired, the more the better. In this case a fairly dark shade is obtained by putting more dark fur in the mix. The actual colour which results, is not nearly as critical as the fact that it is made up of different colours. Other furs may be blended in if desired to obtain specific results.
Many old time dressers had "secret" dubbing mixtures which were handed down for generations. Most of these were simple blends of various furs, usually two or three, sometimes more. The "Rythmical Table" describes some of these blends if you would like to try them.
Avoid dyed furs if you can, they are simply not as good as natural blends of fur. For some blends you have no choice, when for instance crimson or bright green or purple is called for, but if possible stick to natural colours as much as you can. Small amounts of synthetics such as antron etc mixed in to give a bit of sparkle, or imitate air covered wing cases, etc seem OK, but don't overdo it, and try the originals first before you start modifying!
HEAD. - Either the waxed yellow silk, or a black or dark brown varnished head. I like black or brown varnished heads on some of these flies. Many of the naturals have very dark shiny heads.
There are countless other variations which alter the appearance, properties, or imitation value of these flies, but these are the main ones. I will try to add some of the various other styles in the near future.
Bunched and rolled wings may also be used either single and paired or split, or even completely different or artificial materials like Antron etc. An extremely interesting new idea for soft hackles is the use of CDC as wings, thoraces etc. I am experimenting actively with this technique, and it looks very promising indeed.
Combinations and variations of each method are also legion, depending on what the inventor wishes to achieve. Hackle and wing angles, body lengths, etc. may all be varied at will. Bear in mind, we have only discussed one fly, using the same materials for the different styles, and the possible variations of wet imitations for various purposes and conditions!
( Cont'd next post )
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....."Ya did it again....." 
Tkx. Mike.....you dah main. 
